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Paradox Announcement Show Reveals Several New Games for Release in 2023

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Upcoming Titles Include The Lamplighters League and Cities: Skylines II

STOCKHOLM - March 6, 2023 - Paradox Interactive, a developer and publisher of games for all audiences, today made nine announcements over the course of the Paradox Announcement Show, including three new full games, three expansions for titles in the Paradox catalog, and three announcements from the Paradox Arc publishing initiative. All nine titles that were revealed in the show are slated for release in 2023, making this year one of Paradox’s most ambitious to date. The show concluded with the announcement of Cities: Skylines II, a sequel to Paradox Interactive’s best-selling city-building game from Colossal Order.

The 2023 Paradox Announcement Show is available to watch in its entirety here.

The three full games revealed during the Announcement Show included:

  • The Lamplighters League, an original game created by Seattle-based Harebrained Schemes, featuring globetrotting pulp adventure and strategic turn-based combat set in an alternate, stylish 1930s
  • Life By You, a new game from Paradox Tectonic, with details to be shared in an upcoming announcement show on March 20, 2023
  • Cities: Skylines II from Finland-based developer Colossal Order, a direct sequel to Paradox’s iconic, award-winning city-building game from 2015

Paradox Arc, the publishing initiative started in 2022 to elevate new deep, endless, replayable games from smaller developers, announced two new games:

  • Mechabellum, a sci-fi auto-battler game where players compete with ever-growing armies of mechs, robots, and heavy weapons
  • Knights of Pen & Paper 3, a sequel to Paradox’s pop-culture infused turn-based RPG series

In addition, Paradox Arc revealed Across the Obelisk: The Wolf Wars, the first expansion to the deckbuilding RPG released with Paradox Arc last year, featuring a new zone, character, and more.

Three titles in the Paradox library revealed new expansions coming in 2023:

  • Crusader Kings III: Tours and Tournaments will add new actions and adventures for characters, with new ways to gain prestige at home and abroad
  • Europa Universalis IV: Domination expands and improves content for some of the game’s most popular and powerful nations
  • Surviving the Aftermath: Rebirth, offers a chance to truly reshape and regrow the devastated earth through terraforming and more

Full details regarding The Lamplighters League and Cities: Skylines II will be shared separately today. Life By You will reveal extended details and gameplay in an announcement show on March 20, 2023 on the Life By You YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@lifebyyou

The press kit for the Paradox Announcement Show can be found here. 

Full details on all other announcements are below.

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In Crusader Kings III: Tours and Tournaments, the map comes alive with new possibilities as your realm becomes the host of great celebrations and great tournaments. Pilgrimages to holy religious sites are joined by more secular travel, including grand tours of the realm where your ruler can get a first-hand account of what is happening in their lands.

Tours and Tournaments is full of things your character can do to increase their prestige or their abilities. Not everything is safe, but with great risk comes the potential for great renown as your character hunts large game, travels to far off lands or engages in mock combat.

Features of Crusader Kings III: Tours and Tournaments include:

  • Grand Tournaments: Host a grand demonstration of feats of arms, attracting nearby nobles and wandering knights. Choose the events, set the destination and use the tournament to improve your social standing or military prowess.
  • Grand Tours: Take a trip through your realm to take stock of your vassals, gifting them with your benevolence or extorting them for higher taxes.
  • Grand Weddings: Save your gold for an elaborate ceremony that centers the real meaning of marriage - politics. Honor your in-laws, cater to your vassals and demonstrate your power.
  • Travel System: Plan your route to these great activities, choosing safety through civilized lands or risking everything for a more direct route through dark forests or dangerous mountains. Ease your way with a large entourage that marks your importance or travel light so you can get down to business.
  • Knightly Accolades: Honor your best knights with special titles and accolades that will give bonuses to them and the armies they lead.
  • New Armor Designs: New historical armor designs from across the centuries, integrated with the new Tournament and Accolade systems.
  • New Western Clothing: New art for clothing designs will show how fashions changed and evolved in Western Europe from the time of the Carolignians to the closing of the medieval era.

Tours and Tournaments will be released this spring, alongside a major free update available for all Crusader Kings III players. This update will include the new Activity menu with updated interactions for pilgrimages, feasts and hunts, as well as more intricate management of regency relations. Major changes to vassal relations and domain management are also included in this update.

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The story of the early modern world is largely the story of imperial growth and colliding ambitions. England, France and Spain battle for power in a New World to fuel hegemony in the Old World. The established Ottomans are confronted by a new rising power in Russia. In Asia, the old Chinese and Japanese empires fight centuries of inertia in search of centralized authority. Now, in Europa Universalis IV: Domination, you can rediscover the histories of these great powers with updated historical detail.

Domination is a new expansion pack for Paradox Interactive’s classic grand strategy game about the rise and fall of empires from the Renaissance to the Age of Revolutions. In Domination, many of the most popular and powerful nations are getting updated mission trees and other historical details, in an add-on with true global reach and multiple new alternate histories.

Europa Universalis IV: Domination includes new national mission trees and features for:

  • The Ottoman Empire: A revised conquest tree with new rewards for pushing Ottoman dominance, including expansion through the new Eyalet system, and new internal changes, such as the new Janissary estate and the ‘Ottoman Power Struggle’..
  • China: Different mission trees for the Han Ming and invader empires like the Qing. Choose between expansion and Inward Perfection, and counter the power of the Eunuchs to build a more stable empire.
  • Japan: Unite Japan as you deal with the power of the Shogun and the independent Daimyos. Choose to open the country to foreign influence or keep it isolated, while deciding upon different paths of expansion and reform.
  • Russia: Free your country of the Tatar Yoke, and transform it into a Great Empire. Choose the path of Peter’s reforms to modernize the state, so your mission tree as well as your mechanics will change and evolve as the game progresses. Use the power of Cossacks and Streltsy to expand your Empire to East and West.
  • Spain: Expanded mission trees for Castile and Aragon, with different paths to form Spain, a new mechanic available for the new ‘Hispanic Monarchy’ government, and decisions about the Army and Navy to get the mighty Tercios and Spanish Armada.
  • France: Fight the end of the Hundred Years War, centralize France into an absolute monarchy while dealing with the Wars of Religion, expand into Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, and lead the Revolution through an expanded mission tree.
  • Great Britain: Separate paths for either a British Empire or an Angevin Britain, as well as a deeper internal gameplay, with unique features for the English Parliament  and changes to the English Civil War disaster.
  • Minor nations: Mission changes, new government mechanics and expanded flavor for Prussia, Portugal and Korea.

Domination also includes new art and music alongside a rich menu of new historical detail, adding more flavorful estates, reforms, special units and events to the leading powers. Europa Universalis IV: Domination will be accompanied by a major update to the game, free for all Europa Universalis IV players.

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Paradox Interactive and Iceflake Studios today announced Rebirth, the third expansion for their survival colony builder, Surviving the Aftermath. Rebirth introduces terraforming, giving players the power to modify and revitalize the environment for their colonists. An infectious threat has also appeared, so use your knowledge, tools, and specialized buildings to protect the world you have just restored. Surviving the Aftermath: Rebirth launches on March 16 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC at a suggested retail price of 14.99 USD / 12.79 GBP / 14.99 EUR.

Building upon years of knowledge, skills, and leadership, humankind is ready to move forward and reclaim Earth after the apocalyptic event. Standing between the colonists and prosperity is the Blight, a fungal infestation brought about by radioactive contamination. Find a cure for Blight by collecting samples, utilizing advanced facilities, and modifying your surroundings with terraforming. As your environment returns to a greener and more vibrant state, suppress this infectious, ecological danger and look toward a brighter future.

"Rebirth represents a turning point of humanity's survival experience. It is an end to mere survival and the beginning of a new chapter. It is time to start rebuilding civilization and heal the world,” said Lasse Liljedahl, Game Director for Surviving the Aftermath. "The Blight mechanic presents the greatest challenge the colonists have faced so far, but it is also a key to turn the tide and repair the damage the environment has suffered after the apocalypse. These new features such as terraforming give players more control of their surroundings, but also expand the core gameplay to new meaningful directions."

Surviving the Aftermath: Rebirth Key Features:

  • Blight: from threat to resource
    After decades of exposure to radioactive pollution, a new infestation called Blight has emerged. Mutated fungi have started to infect the animals, causing them to become aggressive and dangerous. This infection has spread through the wasteland and is threatening to take over. You will need to find a cure for the Blight to defend against it. Gather Blight samples, study them in a new research building and make discoveries to unlock new buildings, resources, and upgrades.
     
  • From a wasteland to green pastures
    Let’s turn this barren land into fertile soil! With the Terraformer, you will be able to welcome new life: the more you terraform, the more your map will turn green and lush with vegetation and animals. Be aware of the blighted areas that you will terraform, here, blight monsters will spawn and attack your survivors.
     
  • New buildings and upgrades
    “Rebirth” adds three new buildings, three building upgrades, plus an all-new multi-stage Blight lab with its Research tree. A Purification post will allow you to remove small pollution deposits and it can be upgraded to an Extermination post to clear blighted nests, hives, and lairs. The Basic Terraformer turns the land into terraformed soil and it can be upgraded to Advanced Terraformer. The Environmental Station becomes the Hazmat station: with it, survivors can clear the blight cores and stop the creatures' attacks. While not a new building, the Guard Posts have received significant improvements and will now be more critical than ever when defending your colony.


For more information on Surviving the Aftermath, Paradox and Iceflake, visit paradoxinteractive.com

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Paradox Arc is proud to present Mechabellum, a massive mech autobattler from independent developer Game River. In Mechabellum, players will power up and place massive armies of unique mechs in PvP auto-battles against another player or the AI. Massive battles unfold with tremendously explosive firepower, and victory will go to the player who remembers to always think one mech ahead.

  • Create and Command your Army: From the nimble Wasp light aircraft to the massive Vulcan, learn the strengths and weaknesses of a large number of unique mechs. Customize them and their abilities before you go to war to maximize their destructive power. 
  • Counter for Victory: Anticipate your enemy and strategically place your mechs on the battlefield. Counter your opponent’s moves by choosing the perfect unit combination as the battle unfolds. 
  • Turn the Tide with Special Abilities: Turn a losing battle into a winning one by calling down the perfectly placed airstrike, or spread chaos by calling in a horde of crawler bots in the midst of your enemy’s army. 
  • Massive Battles: Watch shrapnel, incendiary bombs and huge lasers cut through the air as battles between massive armies of mechs unfold in front of your eyes.

Mechabellum will launch in Steam Early Access on May 11, 2023. For more information and to wishlist the game, please visit https://store.steampowered.com/app/669330/Mechabellum/

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Paradox Interactive today announced the first full expansion ever to launch for a Paradox Arc title, revealing Across the Obelisk: The Wolf Wars coming to Steam on March 30, 2023. Expanding upon the story and world of Across the Obelisk from Madrid-based developers Dreamsite Games, The Wolf Wars will add a new hero to the roster alongside the game’s familiar faces - when they were younger and didn’t yet know what the cards held for them.

Features will include:

  • Live the Tale of the Wolf Wars: Play through a completely new independent zone depicting Senenthia from the past. Travel back ten years and live the tale of the legendary Wolf Wars. Experience events and fight together with the team of heroes that participated in the war. Choose different paths in order to reach the final goal of the war. 
  • New Character and Pet: When you have completed the Wolf Wars story, none other than Yogger will be unlocked as a new playable character! You will also be able to unlock the new pet, the wolf cub Wolfy! 
  • New Hero Skins: While playing the story of the Wolf Wars you will encounter several heroes in their younger days. Completing their events will unlock new skins for them. A total of five new skins and events are included.

Players can wishlist Across the Obelisk: The Wolf Wars at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2325780/Across_The_Obelisk_The_Wolf_Wars/ today.

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Paradox Arc today made the dicey decision to bring back Knights of Pen & Paper, a retro-styled, pop-culture-infused, humor-driven, turn-based RPG adventure series. With more bizarre character creation combinations, new village building mechanics, a new skill system, and probably new jokes, the series is more “everything” than ever before. Knights of Pen & Paper 3, from Knights of Pen & Paper 2 developers Kyy Games, is releasing for PC tomorrow, March 7, 2023.

Features will include:

  • Superior Character Creation: Knights of Pen & Paper 3 provides an upgraded character creation system. With diverse class- and party build options you can truly create the pixelated heroes of your dreams.  
  • Prestige Classes: Unlock new prestige classes that combine the skills of two basic classes, and also add their own unique skills into the mix. While running out of ideas the new class skills will be weirder and, um, more special.
  • New Skill System: With a brand new skill system, even low level skills are useful! The new system now scales the skill effects based on character stats. All skills are unlocked automatically. 
  • Village Building: Spend resources obtained throughout your adventures upgrading village buildings to unlock new fantastical content! 
  • Enhanced Graphics: Saving throws and clubbing trolls have never looked better! 

For more information on Knights of Pen & Paper 3, make a knowledge check at https://store.steampowered.com/app/2129470/Knights_of_Pen_and_Paper_3/

For additional information, please contact:
Paradox Interactive Public Relations Team
Email: pr@paradoxinteractive.com

About Paradox Interactive

The Paradox group today consists of both publishing and internal development of games and brands. Paradox has a broad portfolio of games owns the most important brands, including Stellaris, Europa Universalis, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings, Cities: Skylines, Prison Architect, Victoria, Age of Wonders and the World of Darkness catalogue of brands. From the start 2004, the company has published its games all over the world, initially through physical distribution but since 2006 primarily in digital channels. Paradox games are developed primarily for PC and console platforms, but the company also releases games on mobile. The largest markets today include the US, UK, China, Germany, France and Scandinavia. In total, Paradox games have over five million players each month.

For more information, please visit www.paradoxinteractive.com.

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